105 The Corpse Vanishes

105 The Corpse Vanishes:

 Bela Lugosi is a hunchback-whipping, corpse-snatching, mad scientist! If that doesn't get you attention then I don't know what will. This was a pretty basic little caper with a silly plot.
Verdict:3/4-Watchable! A cute little spook flick.

Coming off of 'Mad Monster' and 'Robot VS the Aztec Mummy' (keep in mind that 104 is actually the season finally, it was just aired out of order) I was hoping to be seeing more signs of MST3K's soon-to-be magnificence. Sadly (to some extent) this episode isn't too much of a step up from the last. The riffs are a bit less sparse, but quite a bit of them (notably in the short) seem to fall flat. However, much like the last episode, there are still a few howlers among the theater. Joel's Bela impression got some of the biggest laughs out of me in this one.

Opener: Joel's chiro-gyro and the mad's flame throwing flower.
Seg1: Servo and Crow talk about Tiger-bot magazine.
Seg2: Tag (as seen in a KTMA ep)
Seg3: Joel and Crow at the barbershop (also from a KTMA ep)
End: Good thing and bad thing for ram-chips.
Overall: I loved Seg 1. It's so rare to see Crow and Tom just hand out and get along. It also fleshed out their personalities a bit. Speaking of which, the relationship between Josh's Tom Servo and Trace's Crow was a bit different than the ones between the bots while under their other puppeteers. Trace and Josh's bots got along pretty well (as opposed to the slight rivalry between Trace's Crow and Kevin's Tom) while still feeling a bit like siblings (unlike the roommate vibe of Kevin's Tom and Bill's Crow). The other segs where cute, but I really dig seg 1.

Verdict: The riffing was still a bit sparse, but there where just enough just enough good/great lines to keep this from completely sinking.